


Poetry Collection

by Ascended_Sleepers



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Poetry, Postmodernism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 08:31:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18465283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ascended_Sleepers/pseuds/Ascended_Sleepers
Summary: Original poetry.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> How I combat writer's block xD  
> Inspired by Umberto Eco, Jorge Luis Borges, T.S. Eliot, and Osip Mandelstam.

**Sea**

When you stand by the edge of the sea,

In the water, what do you see?

When the sun, dying, spills its blood,

On the crest of a stormy wave,

Do you hear the mermaids sing?

Do you feel the drowned man’s eyes

Staring at you from the mud?

Do you think of a thousand days

Spent in prayer and feverish haze,

And as far as the eye could see

Stretched the tranquil and brilliant sea?

Do you fancy a ship set ablaze,

With formidable prow and tall masts,

Flying blind to her doom, proud and fast

Through the stillness of withering time

From Lepanto to Trafalgár?

Is it near or poignantly far –

A mirage, kissed by wind and brine,

Red and gold on the stern painted white –

Shipwrecks drift with the turning tide.

Nelson fell, but Murat arose,

Carthage burnt on the shores like those,

And a king for his daughter wept.

In the storm, do you weep for me

When you stand by the edge of the sea?

 

**04.02.2019**

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

  **The eighth wonder **

  

There is a want, an endless wonder,  
Or it’s like this – a dazzling wonder,  
The eighth of seven wonders of the world.

There is a path which leads thereunder  
And down I roam, or maybe wander –  
The eighth of seven wonders is a word.

Is it one word or many words?  
A note – or thundering accord?  
A light lost in a stormy sea,  
A long-dead star I cannot see?

A form which yields to formless void,  
A formless void which yields to form –  
I make them dance, and round they turn,  
All countless wonders of the world.

And then I wonder, and I wander,  
I light the stars and vanquish thunder,  
And, voiceless, I will sing when all is still.

**03.02.2019**

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

**Sophism**

 

I am a leaf

Without a spine,

Abandoned to the adverse winds

Of anguish and deceit.

I wither, and I wonder still

In silence when I dare not sleep,

What mark

A weightless leaf can leave

Upon the sands of time.

 

But if you weigh all grains of sand

That trickled

Through an hourglass

Against the torn, dry leaves,

Won’t it condemn pursuits like these,

Though charming in their homeliness,

As thankless and absurd?

 

**12.01.2018**

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

**The Wanderer**

 

I was a spirit, restless, bold

Until the never-ending chase

Of dreams no mortal could embrace

Has led me to a place of old -

A town on a sandy shore.

 

Inside its maze I was consumed

By terror in a newborn’s wail,

By love from which the spirit ails,

By songs unsung that dwell in tombs

And echoes of a distant war.

 

And from my cage I watched the brine:

My eyes – a thousand lights at dusk,

My form – a shipwreck’s hollow husk,

A lone bridge - my crooked spine

And wings of steel that’ll never soar.

 

Into the stones my face was etched,

And day by day, confused, distraught,

A thousand men that path had trod -

Along my spine and down it stretched

Into the mists of long-lost age.

 

You came across the mountains steep,

And rivers deep, and moonlit glades

You crossed the stormy sea with waves

Each like a wild, intrepid steed -

And you were neither fool, nor sage.

 

But when you knelt, the deserts bloomed,

And starlight were your smiling eyes;

You saw my face - I was unwise -

Beneath the dust and acrid fume,

And footprints of a thousand men.

 

I tamed my shame and looked up high –

My wings were heavy, but what light!

A frenzied, maddening delight.

And with the twilight’s gentle sigh,

I was reborn and flew again.

 

**04.14.2019**


End file.
